Our Team

Mark Burke (Managing Director)

Mark started working as a researcher in the field of small business development and trade and industrial policy for the African National Congress Parliamentary Research Department based Cape Town in 1995. At the time, his work mainly focused on the policy environment. He later joined Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency where he focused on the conceptualisation, design, development and implementation of small business development programmes. One of the major areas of work during this time was the establishment and strengthening of a national network of business development service providers. Since 2000 he has been Managing Partner at Development@Work specialising in economic development and education and training services. Since then, he has been involved in numerous performance improvement assignments in the public sector, focusing on organisational transformation, programme design and implementation projects. He has worked with, and managed, both small and large teams of people. Mark holds a law degree from the University of the Western Cape as well as an Honours Degree in Development Studies. He is a visiting researcher at the LINK Centre, Wits University, where he is responsible for building the e-governance research and capacity building programme. Previously he has also lectured the knowledge management course on the Public Policy Masters Programme of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at Wits University. Mark believes that effective [...]

Melanie Burke

Melanie's 25 years of working experience has been in the business sector, with focus on banking services and information technology. Since 2004, as a social and impact entrepreneur, she has built her own successful consulting business and shareholdings in complementary companies. Her consulting business focuses on the building of capacity in people and organisations, through the use of technology, systems, processes and other business innovations and support mechanisms that create commercial value along with social impact and sustainability. Clients have included big business, small enterprises, government and civil society organisations. In 2008 she accepted an assignment as senior programme director at Common Purpose SA, an international leadership development non-government organisation. Although a relatively late bloomer to the development sector, she has experienced profound resonance and privilege in building leadership and other organisational capabilities in a multi-disciplinary landscape, particularly in the Southern African context. As a generalist her skills in business include account management, vendor management, channel management (including training), marketing and brand management, innovation/development/product management, project management, strategic management, sales strategy, business process re-engineering, contract management and leadership development. Melanie's formal qualifications include a Master of Business Administration (MBA), [...]

Shanti Govender

Shanti has more than 10 years of professional experience in the banking and finance sector, as well as the public management and development sector. She started her career in 2000 in the private sector with Nedbank in its electronic banking division where she worked on the mapping of business processes as the basis for digitising these processes. She left Nedcor in 2002 and joined the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF). The early phase of her stay primarily focused on designing and documenting service delivery processes and setting up the infrastructure through which the organisation could deliver its services. When she left in 2009, she achieved the position as Director of Operations overseeing the operational support for the delivery of organisation-wide products and services. In this position, she was responsible for ensuring that the organisation implemented the ISO quality management system and received quality management certification. This involved defining the business management system, setting quality standards, documenting the business processes and monitoring these to ensure adherence. In early 2010, Shanti joined the Property Division of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) as Senior Manager Operations. Here she was responsible for the legal, human resources, information technology, marketing and communications corporate services functions. Shanti has since left the PIC to focus on pursuing her two passions � art and improving organisational operations. She [...]